Chapter 5

We stepped into the lobby of the Blackstone Hotel and I was absolutely astounded. It was like a mansion from a 1930s movie come to life. There was art and beautiful furnishing all over the lobby.

“Boss, I think we are under dressed,” Nita said.

“You really think that huh?” I asked. “I think to be appropriately dressed it would take everything I made the whole year.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Hi I’m Raymond Selfridge. I think you have a reservation for me. I think it maybe in the name of Force Protection Inc,” I said to the quite attractive, blond young woman behind the desk. I could tell she was trying not to show her distaste for me. I wanted to laugh, but I knew that would be in poor taste.

“There are two more in my party they are parking our vehicles. When they arrive please check their ID cards, then send them up.”

I wrote the official names of Dom and Lucy2 on the back of my business card, then left it with the clerk. “We will each require a key card,” I explained.

“We have you occupying two rooms,” the blond said.

“Just give me two cards for each. We will sort it out later,” I said.

“Very good, I’ll call a bellman,” she said.

“I’d rather find the rooms myself. You do have numbers on the door?” I asked.

“Yes sir, but we require a bellman to accompany you,” she said.

“I require privacy, starting now,” I said. I wanted them to know not to fuck with me right from the jump.

“As you wish,” she said pushing four key cards to me. In exchange I pushed the company credit card to her. She didn’t even look at it. “A card won’t be necessary.”

I picked up the two large backpacks and struggled to the elevator. Nita brought her medium sized piece of rolling luggage. We found our rooms on the eighth floor. It got us above the buildings across the street. None of those were a sniper threat really. They were too short for that use. They did not have the correct angle for the penthouse shot. There were two buildings with an angle, but it would require a talented and very well trained sniper to make the shot from two blocks away.

“Nita, we are going to take turns doing recon. You take the first one. Check all those buildings in line of sight to the hotel. Look for anything out of the ordinary. I know it’s unlikely, but check the windows as well as the street traffic,” I suggested.

“You don’t think that the government protection teams have thought of all this?” she asked.

“Do we want to know before, or after some asshole sends an RPG into the suite?” I asked.

“Good point,” she said.

“It’s the difference between a cop and a soldier’s thinking, I guess,” I admitted.

Nita began the building scan, using the super strong glasses, before Lucy2 and Dom showed up. Lucy2 saw Nita scanning the building’s windows and the foot traffic along the street.

“What is she looking for?” Lucy2 asked me.

“Anything out of place. I want you and Dom to drive around the this block and practice with the GPS.” I suggested.

“Are we going to drive them,” Dom asked. “I thought state would arrange that.”

“The way I read the plan, the prince is like fifty third in line for the throne. The state dept doesn’t give a crap about him. This visit isn’t happening, according to them. We will probably get a couple of FBI agents waiting to retire. So we are going to ‘help’ them out. Nita, how did that scan go?” I asked.

“Everything looks normal to me,” she said.

“Okay I’ll check it, then we will go up to the presidential suite,” I explained.

“Dom, you and Lucy start checking the roads again. He drives, you read the GPS. Pretend you are evading a bunch of kidnappers.” I said.

“Do you see that as the most likely treat?” Nita asked.

“It’s high on my list,” I suggested, sitting in the chair by the window. “I hope you all worked on your close hand to hand combat skills. We may be up for it on this one.”

It took me an hour to photograph all the windows of the buildings, then to take closeup picture of the stores across the street. I downloaded the file onto my small Dell computer, then I sent a copy of it to the office in DC. I wanted their analyst to get a good look. I was sure the LT had someone on retainer to do that kind of thing.

“Lucy while you are riding around, come by the hotel and shoot the sidewalk and the traffic. It’s a long shot, but we may spot someone suspicious. Send the pictures back to the LT in DC,” I demanded.

After Dom and Lucy left and the sun was going down, Nita and I went to the presidential suite. The layout was simple there was one room which ran from the front all the way though to the terrace which I assumed wouldn’t be used due to the temperature. The best guess was for temperatures in the twenties and thirties for the highs midday. They expect it to be ten to zero at night. It they walked out to see the view, I would try to go along to block the view of a sniper. The view was just as good through the sliding patio door and it was a damn sight warmer, I thought.

On the right side of the large seating area was a huge master bedroom with a beautiful bathroom. I shot pictures of everything in that room. Then went back into the sitting and entertainment area. In that space I also shot photos of everything. I sent them back to the boss via smart phone.

On the left of the major area were two bedroom doors. The two rooms also connected through a door inside the bedrooms. The girl would presumably occupy one of those. Most likely the Prince’s own bodyguard would occupy the second bedroom. There was no rivalry on my side of the equation. I couldn’t speak for the other side. I would be happy, if none of us was jealous of the other. A little protection from the prince’s family would be nice.

When we returned to our room, it somehow seemed much smaller, I thought. I called Dom on the cell phone. “Dom stop by a drive thru and bring me a burger and fries. You might want to get a few canned cokes. If we have to buy cokes from this joint, we might just break even with our salaries,” I suggested. I spent two hours scanning the windows across from the hotel with a thermal scanner. I finished the scan after Dom returned, while eating a burger from some place of which I never heard.

It wasn’t a bad burger, but it wasn’t a Hardee’s bacon egg and cheese biscuit either. I had grown accustomed to Hardee breakfast biscuits since they were in Sanford. I rode the 25+ miles to the Sanford Hardee’s restaurant often. I stopped there and had breakfast then rode the 25+ miles home. Somehow the food was better after the long ride.

It was too bad that they served that awful S&D coffee. I firmly believe that S&D sells the worst possible quality coffee to that type restaurant. It is maybe the only coffee which is better the longer it sits in the pot. Okay I’m venting for no good reason, since I had a diet coke from a can with my burger.

When the scan was complete I uploaded it to the home office. I wanted to let Martin’s consultants consult on it. They presumably would have computer equipment to tell me something, before someone got shot. I would hate to find out afterward that I could have stopped it.

I dialed the personal phone of Junior Martin the leader of record for Force Protection. When I was sure that I had him on the line I said, “I want the FBI to sweep the suite for bugs. Also check the royal family’s clothes every time they enter the suite. If the bad guys need intelligence it is the easiest way to get it,” I said.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. The prince is paranoid about his family. There have been a bunch of kidnappings this year,” the LT said. “I’ll mention it to the right people.”

“I’m going to try to insert Lucy2 into the family,” I said. “Either as the wife’s confidant or the daughter’s new friend.”

“It would be nice if that worked,” he said from half a continent away.

“We are doing this on the fly, so it has to work. If not with Lucy2, I’ll try Nita,” I said.

“From what I hear, you or Dom might be better for the daughter,” he said.

“When it come to women, I’m too old and Dom is a loose cannon,” I said.

“Well do the best you can,” he said and broke the connection.

The girls decided to shake up the sleeping arrangements. They decided to go with the work shift partnership for bedroom assignments. That meant Lucy2 and Dominic shared a room and Nita and I shared the other one. More than likely it meant only one room would be in use at a time. In addition to the secret service we were going to be supplying 24 hour coverage.

We were going to leave the outside coverage pretty much to the Chicago police department. The hallways and building interior was going to be covered by the third string agents. The prince’s own people would presumably be with him as well. Truthfully I had no idea why we were there at all.

I had read in a report that after 911, we suspected some members of the royal family had supported the men who planned the attack. They for sure had given money to the families of the attack perpetrators. The prince might not trust his own guards to keep their mouths shut. For a man so closely watched in his home town, there were a lot of temptations in a city like Chicago. The LT had made it clear that a lot of the job would be knowing when to look the other way.

All those thoughts ran through my head making it hard to sleep. I was glad that the girls had decided on the sleeping arrangements, so that I didn’t have to do it. I left the three of them in a club while I returned to the hotel to check things out one last time. It was a total waste of time.

I was in the room I planned to share with Nita, when the three of them showed up. They were only slightly drunk. “Here is a key to the van. I thought sure you would have looked at the gear. Anyway your bike is there. Lucy had a fit until I loaded it. So you can use it in the morning. The van is on level five of the parking garage across the street,” Dominic said.

“Since the planes won’t be in until 11AM, I should have time for a ride. Thanks guys.” I said it to show them I noted they didn’t have to do that for me. “It’s 10PM and 5AM come early so I’m going to sleep before I have to start working on four or five hours sleep a day.”

I tried to usher them out the door, but it was Nita’s explanation that she was also ready for bed which finally worked. I pretended not to notice the look that passed between the two women. It looked as though there were plots brewing closer than Saudi Arabia.

“Look boss this may be our last chance to sleep together. You never know what might happen next,” Nita said.

“Nita you are a beautiful woman, and sexy as hell, but I have a policy. I do not sleep with women I work with,” I replied.

“Bull shit I know you and Lucy did the deed,” she said.

“There wasn’t supposed to be another job at the time. Besides how the hell did you know?” I asked.

“She told me. Jesus, you men are so dumb,” she said. “You think that you are the only ones who are proud of your conquests.” Nita walked into the bathroom laughing.

I laid with my eyes open going over plans until midnight, then fell asleep. I slept without dreaming as I usually do. The clock alarm went off at 5:06AM. I tried to correct the alarm setting as I did almost every morning. I should trash the clock, but then I would have one less minor thing to obsess about.

I found the bike where I was told it would be, so I took off for a two hour ride. Chicago at 5AM was slightly busier than New York had been. Both were busier than the whole damn Chatham County. I made it through the streets until 7AM. I even managed to get back to the hotel before the team began calling me.

“This is the last team meeting before we go to work. First of all we need to give these people code names. Since you are my team, I am going to name the Prince. He will be Omar. So Lucy, give us a name for the wife,” I demanded.

“Sara,” she said without any hesitation.

“Nita name the kid,” I demanded as well.

“Tasha, not sure how appropriate it is though,” she said. “It’s the name of my Russian friend.”

“It’s fine. So Dominic give us a name for the body guard,” I said.

“Ali,” he said without any thought. “It’s the name of the kid in my neighborhood. His dad ran a deli.”

“So we were told not to go to the airport to meet them. So, we are not going to meet them, but we are going to try to watch over them. Do an especially good job of staying unnoticed, so that we don’t have to explain why we disobeyed a federal order.

“If I get caught, I’m going to blame it on your lousy orders,” Dominic said.

“Fair enough,” I agreed. “Time to leave. Set up somewhere, so that you can see them leave. Take the van with the scooter so one of you can follow them on it, if you need to do so.

It was a good thing that Lucy2 rode the scooter. She couldn’t safely work the foot throttle in a car. The scooter’s throttle was a hand version, so she was fine with it.

When the Secret Service limo arrived, it held Omar, Sara, and Ari. They had not met with their daughter yet. After they were in the hotel about an hour, the client called us into the suite. He introduced us to Omar and his family.

“Prince there are two more members of my team but they haven’t returned from the airport. They were told to follow your Limo. We wanted to be sure you arrived safely,” I explained. “They will be along and I’ll introduce you as they become available.”

I had a feeling they were being detained by the Secret Service agent, or something unexpected had come up. I wasn’t worried enough to try to track them down just yet.